GS Venture supported participants of the 34th HackDay in Kaliningrad

Sergey Filimonov, Head of the GS Venture corporate venture fund, took part in the educational program of the HackDay#34, held in Kaliningrad from October 31 to November 2, 2014. Sergey unveiled advantages and disadvantages of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) concept.

During the HackDay startups had 48 hours to develop a project from the idea to prototype. The event is held in Kaliningrad for the second time with the assistance of the innovation territorial cluster Technopolis GS. This year Sergey Filimonov, Head of the GS Venture corporate venture fund, attended the event on behalf of the GS Group holding company. The speaker reported on the Minimum Viable Product within a traditional educational program, aimed at providing an expert knowledge which the teams can further apply while working on their projects. Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, is a kind of a core that the startupers should develop and show the target audience to get a feedback. This approach allows spending less time on developing additional features that are in demand by consumers. Head of GS Venture also acted as a mentor at the HackDay#34, giving expert pieces of advice to authors of the developed projects.

“HackDay enables participants to assemble a successful team and develop a minimum viable product in 48 hours which they can further demonstrate to the target audience and gain a feedback. The task for the next 48 days is to bring the solution to the full-fledged startup which will be of interest to serious investors,” – comments Sergey Filimonov.

Head of GS Venture noted the high level of training of participants during the tutorial session of the 34th HackDay. He also pointed out the relevance of developed solutions with a remarkably large number of hardware projects among them. 14 projects were presented to the experts; two of them were in the priority areas for the GS Group holding company: the gaming industry for mobile platforms and the field of administration of Wi-Fi networks for flattening of flux and load balancing.

The HackDay#34 program also included an informal discussion of the strategy of innovation development in the Kaliningrad region and throughout the country. Following the meeting, the number of participants was invited to take part in a tour around Technopolis GS enterprises on November 6, 2014. They had a chance to see with their own eyes the capabilities of material and technical base of the cluster both to solve the everyday tasks and to implement innovative ideas from the product revision to its promotion in the market.

In 2013, the city of Kaliningrad for the first time ever brought together programmers, designers, developers, PR specialists, marketing specialists and other experts wishing to participate in the HackDay “working weekend”. According to results of the event, the authors of two developments, that can be applicable in the field of satellite television, received prizes from the GS Group holding company.